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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (38378)	8/17/2002 11:42:52 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

That network is quite capable of flourishing and of attacking us without the support of any state or any army. It takes bucks and a safe haven, Steven. The first thing to do is to make sure there are no more easy safe havens. That is why there has to be some regime changes in the ME. We are on to them, now, and hopefully, will stay on top of them. It won't be easy, and we will get hit again, I am sure. The key thing we are doing wrong, IMO, is that the organization is wrong. You need one central clearing house where all info goes in, get analyzed, and gets acted on. This has been proven time and time again in time of war. We don't have it, and the new Bureaucracy being installed won't accomplish that for us.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (38378)	8/18/2002 2:40:03 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

We can easily install new governments in these countries. It will be much more difficult to install stable governments capable of sustaining themselves without constant US support. How is that any different than the current situation where Arab governments are only stabilized because of the past 12 years of US presence which has kept Saddam and other regimes at bay??? (or the $2 Billion in aid we provide the Egypt). We cannot sustain an indefinite military occupation of the entire Islamic world, or even a significant portion of it. But isn't that what we've effectively been doing for the past 12 years, although we call it "containment"?? And isn't the long-standing US presence in Saudi Arabia one of the major sources of contention that Bin Laden was able to use in formenting Anti-American sentiment?? US troops will not be there for more than 4-5 years in any great number if we do what's required, an economic transformation of the middle east that creates opportunity to replace the despair that currently pervades the region (driven by demographics). We're damned if we do and damned if we don't. But at least by doing something directly, we have a chance of deciding the outcome, rather than waiting for the inevitable. Hawk